# 13

#13

in the dark, blurry swell

of thinking fueled by fear

one thing remains whole

and unchanged,

like a diamond, unbreakable

your spirit burns ceaselessly,

returning you to your own great light-

# 12: it's okay not to know it's okay

8411

It’s okay not to know it’s okay

i am complete

with no woman’s embrace

i am complete

with no food in my belly

i am incomplete

yet i am whole

i am not my thoughts of separation

i am connected

i am afraid

but i am not my fears

i am sad

but i am happy to be sad

i am lost and alone

but i am here with myself

i am a breath

in the wind of the world,

a leaf floating to the ground

it doesn’t matter where i land

i am in no hurry

i am powerless

i don’t care

i don’t know what i want 

it’s okay not to know

i don’t know what i need

i get what i need

i am not you

i am like you

i am a gift being unwrapped

i am the tape and paper

it’s okay to open

it’s okay to hurt

i am writing these words

i am reading these words

i am warm 

i am compassionate

i go gentle with myself

its okay to have a hard day

a low day, 

a down day,

it’s okay to be lost

i am okay when i am lost

i feel ashamed of myself

it’s okay to feel shame

i feel despair

it’s okay to give up hope

it’s okay to slip and fall

i forgive myself

it’s okay to cry

it’s okay to hide

it’s okay to yell

it’s okay to defend what needs no defending

it’s okay to complain to the sky

it’s okay to ask why

it’s okay not to know

it’s okay not to care

it’s okay to love

it’s okay to leave

it’s okay to love again

it’s okay-

#11

#11

Holding ear to the cloud

Listening for directions,

Wondering which way the wind blows,

A bell tolls,

Don’t ask for who,

There is no body here but you,

And you knew this,

But you forgot again.

With the deep breath in

Hope returns,

At the end of the exhale

Stillness and peace,

There was never any place to go,

Was there?

You have always been home,

You have always been home.

#10

#10 I never imagined I would see the day when I’d understand full well why my mother left televisions on all the time through out the house. The television is company; isn’t it? I am about to eat dinner alone in my 4 bedroom house once again. My kids are with their mom this week. I would prefer conversation or human interaction. It seems strange, almost opulent or wasteful for one person, myself to live in this surplus of space when so many people in poverty are hungry and homeless.  Usually I am not willing to put a lot of time and effort into making a meal if it’s going to be only me eating it. But today I turned NPR on the internet and listening to old shows of “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” I spent hours preparing salads and fruit smoothies. The radio kept my mind off of my mind if you know what I mean. I’m about to sit down and watch a tv show while I eat. Sometimes I play solitaire while I eat. When I was a kid I’d surround myself with cereal boxes and read everything on them, including the ingredients and minimum daily nutrition requirements. Keep that monkey mind occupied and it can’t attack you.  ..come to think of it, mom played a lot of solitaire too.

Can It Get Any More Dysfunctional?

Greedy Republicans, Spineless Democrats and Annoying Tea Party Folks: 

                          

Interesting isn’t it? Unlike us mortal individuals whose credit limits are decreased when we are late or errant on our credit card payments, the government may simply raise their limits in response to defaulting on their own loan. We mere mortals, however, when we’ve lived beyond our means and the means to pay our debt back face collection agencies, bank foreclosures, liens on our salary and so on.  

In 2001 and 2003 during the Bush administration taxes cuts were made; keep in mind that this was at a time when we were already in one war and about to start a second one-very expensive wars. Does it make sense to cut government revenue when expenses are clearly about to increase.  In 2000 the national debt was 6 trillion dollars. By the end of the Bush years and 2 years into the wars and economic toilet bowl that Obama inherited, the debt rose to 13 trillion. If those tax cuts hadn’t been made, the initial 6 trillion would have been balanced. In other words, our debt wouldn’t have risen if our revenue wasn’t decreased. As recently as last December our representatives voted to renew the tax cuts even in light of our exploding debt. Who is it that’s driving this bus? 

So now instead of increasing revenue by raising taxes back to  previous levels on those who can painlessly afford it we choose to trim a trillion dollars from our debt by cutting jobs and unemploying even more Americans during the highest unemployment rate this country has seen since the Great Depression. More unemployment results in more foreclosures and the need for more unemployment checks going out to those whose jobs we just cut.  Are the drivers of this bus qualified to drive safely? Should we continue to trust them to take us where we want to go?

Further irony; government cuts in jobs and spending result in decreased tax revenues because less people are earning money. I don’t think I’m  exaggerating when I say that whoever is driving this bus must be drunk, stupid or insane because this bus ain’t goin no where fast. The bus has been wrecked and an appraiser would judge it “totalled”; take it to the scrap yard and build a new better bus, one preferably stupid-proof so anyone can drive it.

The really bad news? Nothing is going to change. The rich are going to remain financially secure (a while longer) while the rest of us common folk will struggle more. This trend is not new.

Quite a predicament we’ve gotten ourselves into and like an antagonistic and failing marriage, our politicians refuse to collaborate on solutions because they are too busy arguing over who is right and who is wrong so that they can convince the public to vote for them, thus insuring that they will stay employed for another couple years.

If our leaders need a little help and guidance I have a few suggestions we could start with that wouldn’t inflict any more damage on our already trashed educational system, social services and entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, all of which we pay taxes into.

First and foremost I would advise that politicians reduce their salaries (good thing they’re not paid on results) and their ridiculously generous lifetime pensions and health programs (after just two years of service). 

Secondly, I would suggest that we stop worrying about setting up unsolicited democracies in oil rich countries and invest the cost of war into domestic research creating alternative, clean, renewable energy sources.  The Oil Age like the Ice Age is ended.  

Thirdly, I would raise the frigging taxes on the obscenely rich. Period. There is no justifiable reason not to. Underneath our guise of free market economy, we are beginning to resemble feudal Europe more and more. A few kingdoms and their royal families running the show and then the rest of us working our butts off and then, paying taxes to the royalty so that they can build themselves another newer bigger palace. 

Republicans..Democrats...Tea Party...hmmm?   I remember reading once about an authentic tea party that happened back around 1776; yep-The Boston Tea Party and the beginning of an American  Revolution whose founding cry was “No taxation without representation!” Do you feel represented lately? I don’t!

# 11

8111

I know that I am with my God 

when the voices in my head 

are replaced by that soothing 

reassuring quiet and my eyes turn shiny 

with childlike wonder,

when my ears are sweetened 

by the varied sounds of Life,

especially those silent moments when 

Everything...Everything holds it’s breath,

I know that I am with my God

when I am calmed by the steady 

opened beat of my own heart,

and i speak from the smiling center 

of that heart saying over and over again

that mantra of acceptance and gratitude,

Everything is just as it should be, 

Everything...everything, 

is just as it should be-